Homeworld: From Kharak
by Precept
Summary: For one hundred years, the people of Kharak have known one simple truth - that they were from another world. Now, the time has come to begin the long journey across the galaxy to the fabled world of Hiigara - home. But as the Kharakid seize their destiny, they will find that - in so doing - perhaps the past is best left undisturbed and that fate, as with all things, has its price.
1. PROLOGUE

**PROLOGUE**

One hundred years ago, a satellite detected an object under the sands of the Great Desert.

An expedition was sent.

There they found an ancient starship, buried in the sand. Deep inside this ruin was a single stone that would change the course of our entire history forever.

On the stone was etched a galactic map.

On the stone was etched a single word.

A single word more ancient than the clans themselves.

_Hiigara_.

Home.

For the first time in our history, the clans were united and, in so doing, were finally ready for the monumental task that lay before them.

Construction would take sixty years.

It would demand new technologies, new industries, and new sacrifices.

But the promise of the Guidestone united our entire population.

Every mind became focused on the true origin of our people...

...every effort on the construction of our great work...

...on the vessel that would seek our our past amongst the stars.


	2. Chapter I - Aric

**Chapter I - Aric**

Six hundred years ago, when the Heresy Wars had still raged across the great deserts of Kharak, when Kiith had fought Kiith over interpretations of scripture, the stars must have seemed like such a far-away, mysterious place. Day to day life on Kharak for the Kharakid had prevented any person or any Kiith from looking up at the stars for any other purpose but a momentary escape from the burning heat, scalding sands, and sectarian clan warfare of their home. Life on Kharak had been brutal, it had been hard, and it had been unforgiving. For three hundred years, the Kharakid had visited such harsh, unforgiving brutality on each other. The desert had raised them well.

And then, one hundred years ago, Mevath Segald, with her discovery of the ancient wreck of the _Khar-Toba_, had given them the stars.

And with that, their history.

Now, when any Kharakid looked up at the stars, they saw the Scaffold. They saw the future.

Ten kilometres high and longer still from its forward and rear pylons, the Scaffold had become Kharak's only moon. At first, only miniature lights had flickered around it like interstellar fireflies but then, gradually, over sixty years, the great _Mothership_ \- the symbol and pride of all Kharakian people - was given form inside the Scaffold's great cradle.

The construction would deplete almost all usable resources from Kharak and give those who would remain on the ground only a harsh, meagre existence - but a harsh existence was the norm for the Kharakid. One ship had brought them to this place, from wherever the Kharakid had come from initially, and one ship would take them home.

Hiigara.

Aric Soban was not a religious man. He was not Gaalsien, or Siidim or Somtaaw. He was Sobanii and, while the cyclical poetry of the journey to Hiigara was mostly lost on him, he could appreciate the simple fact behind it.

Soon he - and everyone else - would be going home.

"Lieutenant Soban?"

Aric turned from the window and the view of the great _Mothership_ to find one of his wingmen waving her hand in front of his face. It didn't matter that they had both gone through years of drills and test flights to reach this single day, not even the solemn importance of this final test flight could dull Kothri Manaan's rampant enthusiasm. She had the usual Manaanii habit of treating everything as a performance, flight time included.

"Lieutenant Manaan?"

"Squadron's heading over to the _Mothership_ in twenty minutes," Kothri said, a smile playing over her face. She held a flight helmet in the crook of each arm. It only made her seem more ridiculous."Thought you might like to know."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Aric replied. "I almost thought you had something serious to say for once."

"Unlike you, Soban, I'm not going to be late for my own live-fire exercise."

"No, you'll just get busted for giving the Major lip again."

Kothri shrugged. It was a big movement of her shoulders, somehow easily seen through her thick coveralls. Her dark eyes glittered with an expression that Aric knew was mischief. "And ten credits says I'll beat her score again."

Kothri threw a helmet to him, easily caught. "Come on, Lieutenant. Today's the day."

* * *

The transport lift took them towards the rear of the Scaffold, where the loading bays and docking ports were. Like the rest of the giant orbital drydock, no part of the Scaffold had been built to impress. It was grey, blocky, utilitarian and lacking in many of the more modern elements and features that had gone into the construction of the _Mothership_. Cables and wires crossed over all the areas of the deck that people didn't have to regularly walk through. Crates and boxes, mostly empty, had been left where they lay. Like much of the construction effort, the workers on the Scaffold had approached it with a religious fervour.

Aric thought of Chiima LiirHra. He thought of her smile, the desert spices she used to cover up the stink of oil and grease, the sound of her voice...

"Go on ahead," Aric told Kothri. Giving him a knowing grin, Kothri went on ahead to the docking bay while Aric cast his eyes around the busy dock.

The LiirHra were a young Kiith and, because of that, had embraced every aspect of the _Mothership_ construction process as a way of proving themselves. LiirHra had helped design both the Scaffold and the _Mothership_ and they had helped construct both. Like many of her kin, Chiima's ability to dive head first into a problem and figure it out in minutes was one of the thousand things that endeared her to Aric. She never saw that anything was impossible, not even him. He found her head first in a crate that had been tipped on its side. He stepped up behind her, bent his fingers into the loops of her tool belt, and said, "Hey."

Chiima didn't look back. Her voice was muffled by the crate. "Lieutenant Aric Soban," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"A few things. I was thinking that when the _Mothership_ returns from the hyperdrive test, we could see about taking some time off. Come up to my cabin, have a drink, have a real meal."

Chiima shuffled back and out. Her coveralls, in the usual yellow of _Mothership_ technical staff, were smeared with grease and oil and whatever else came from the arduous of work of preparing the first ever Kharakian starship. They were a stark contrast with her dark skin.

"If we have time," Chiima said.

"We'll have time. It's the final test. After this, there's nothing but minor adjustments and weapon installation."

"And someone has to perform those minor adjustments. Someone has to install those weapons."

Aric felt himself deflate.

"Hey," Chiima said. She placed a finger under his chin and tipped his face up to look at her. She was taller than him. "Once we're on the ship, we'll have all the time in the world. Just hang in there until then, okay?"

"Sobanii do the fighting, LiiHra do the fixing."

Chiima laughed. "Something like that. I'll give you a call when I'm off-duty. But, speaking of duty, flyboy - you're still on the clock. So am I. We're almost at the finish line - let's not botch this just yet."

Aric swooped in and kissed her cheek. Chiima turned, catching his lips with hers. She tasted like oil. Aric grimaced.

"Sorry," Chiima said. "Chewing on a screwdriver," she explained, holding up the offending tool. "You really should go."

"I'll see you later?"

"Abacus."

"What?"

"You can count on it."

With that little beloved interplay, Chiima disappeared back into whatever had her interest in that crate. Aric took a moment to watch her before making his way over to the small shuttle that would take him, Kothri and the five other members of Arrow flight to the _Mothership_.

Major Neema Paktu gave him a thin smile as he approached. "Lieutenant. A brief detour?" She was old enough that grey had begun to streak through her black hair.

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." Aric replied. Behind the Major, Kothri made a kissing gesture at Aric. Next to her, Ferrin Manaan in all his thickly muscled almost-too-big-for-his-cockpit glory snickered.

"It's okay," the Major was saying. "This is a big day. And if this test goes right, you'll have a hell of a thing to come back to."

* * *

The shuttle could fit seven people, but it was cramped. With Kothri on one side and Ferrin on the other, Aric found himself in the uncomfortable position between a barrage of poor jokes on one side and hearty, crushing laughter on the other. Still, he wouldn't be anywhere else - they were his two closest friends, even if Ferrin had another decade on him.

"We've done this routine a thousand times before," Neema said. "We'll take our Arrows out and, with the guidance of Fleet Command and Fleet Intelligence, run through formation and tactics exercises. Of course, given that this is the last time we'll be performing this little mission above that little desert-ball, we'll be taking the safeties off."

"No targeting lasers," Kothri said and she gave a rather pleased whistle.

"Yeah," Ferrin nodded. "We're going to blow up those fucking drones."

"Ensign," Neema cut in.

"Sorry, boss."

"From there, we'll return to the _Mothership_ and await the beginning of the hyperdrive test. The _Mothership_ will be jumping to the edge of the Kharak system to rendezvous with the _Khar-Selim_ and will then return to Kharak to pick up the last six hundred thousand colonists. We all know this. All we will need to do is maintain a CAP for twenty minutes."

"Those boys and girls on the Selim are going to flip out," Ferrin said, and Aric shared the sentiment. The _Khar-Selim_ had spent a decade burning its way out to the edge of the system on conventional fusion drives. What took the Khar-Selim years, the _Mothership_ would do in _hours_.

In theory.

When the shuttle touched down in the _Mothership's_ landing bay, the seven of them went through the familiar routine. Coveralls off, jokes made. Flight suits donned, helmets on. Like many aspects of the _Mothership_, aesthetics of crew uniforms had not been a key design feature. The flight suits, much like the crew coveralls, were a dark grey. The only flashes of colour were the insignia for the Kiith of each pilot, emblazoned on the shoulder - green for Manaan, white for Paktu, tan for Naabal, blue for S'jet.

Red for Soban.

The seven Arrow scout fighters on one side of the cavernous deck bore a similar colour scheme. Their vague L-shaped fuselages were barely more than a fusion drive, sensor pod and pair of kinetic drivers. The fifteen meter long fighters had been a point of contention for many of the Kiithid - why would a peaceful colony ship need armed fighters? It could risk sending the wrong message, that the _Mothership_ was a weapon of conquest. Others, like the Soban elders, had argued that there had to be a reason why the Kharakid had ended up on a desolate desert world and that it probably wasn't a peaceful agreement. It had been a long debate, but eventually the various Kiiths had reached an agreement - the Arrows would be an honour guard.

And a council of Admirals would keep watch.

Aric knew the debates, he had heard them for many nights. He put them from his mind as he took the gantry up to the cockpit of his Arrow and climbed inside, strapped himself in. Befitting his status as an honour guard, someone had stencilled his name and Kiith beneath the cockpit and splashed a red line across the flank of his fighter. He began running through the pre-flight checks with the familiar ease and muscle memory of every other test flight that had led to this point. With a gentle jerk, his fighter was dragged across the deck and towards the launch catapult.

"Arrow Three, reporting ready."

Neema and Ru launched ahead of him. With a sharp jolt, his Arrow was sent down the catapult and out into the waiting vacuum.

A cool voice, familiar to anyone involved in the construction and upkeep of the _Mothership_ came over the communications link. Karan S'jet. Everyone knew her voice just as they knew her name. Of the two thousand people who had died working on the _Mothership_, it was said that no one had made a greater sacrifice than her. One of the greatest minds that Kharak had ever produced, Karan would be their guide, their protector and their fleet-wide co-ordinator as the Kharakid wandered towards the galactic core. She was, now, in a very real sense, the _Mothership_ \- neurally linked into the vital systems of the colossal starship - with her body ensconced away somewhere in the _Mothership's_ hyperdrive core.

"This is Fleet Command. Reporting _Mothership_ pre-launch status. Resourcing on-line. Construction on-line. Cryogenic subsections A through J on-line. K through S on-line. Scaffold Control stand by for alignment. Alignment confirmed. Stand by Release Control."

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," Neema said. "One eighty turn, you're going to want to see this."

Aric turned his fighter around, and set his eyes on the Scaffold.

It was rotating slowly, manoeuvring jets firing to put the _Mothership_ on a better angle. After a moment, it set. Initially, nothing happened.

And then, with a terrific orange flare, the _Mothership's_ engines lit up. It was a slow process. At almost ten kilometres tall, there was a lot of mass to move. Even with powerful fusion reactors, there were limits to how fast something of that size could accelerate.

And yet, the gentle, ponderous speed of it only seemed to make the moment more terrific.

"The _Mothership_ has cleared the Scaffold," Fleet Command reported. Her voice betrayed no emotion. The _Mothership_ had simply done what it was supposed to do. "We are away."

Aric could only imagine Chiima's jubilant expression.

"Stand by for command line testing," Fleet Command continued.

The next voice was just as cool as Fleet Command's was but it was deeper, masculine. It was a Sobanii voice, rigorously cultivated and drilled to command through tone and timbre alone. Even so, Aric had not heard the voice of his father in years.

"Fleet Intelligence going on-line," Admiral Bei Soban said, "Our task is to analyse all sensor data and generate mission objectives. Before the hyperdrive test, several trials must be completed."

As Bei Soban began handing out dictats to the various crews and departments aboard the_ Mothership_, Aric and his squad waited for their turn. They already knew what their orders would be. Somehow, this only made the wait harder.

"Standby to begin combat trials. First we will be monitoring formation performance. Target drones have been provided here." At that, a series of red icons - hostile targets designated by those on board the _Mothership_ blipped into life on Aric's cockpit HUD. "Major Paktu, assign a formation to your fighters and destroy the drones."

"Understood," Neema replied. "Arrows, delta formation. Form up on me and kick it into gear."

When Aric kicked his fighter into gear, it felt like a great weight settled on his chest, pushing him back into the cockpit seat of his fighter. As always, he let the life support systems on board his fighter regulate his breathing, his physiological responses. He felt the familiar mix of drugs and stimulants rush through his system, racing to counteract the discomfort and biological damage from such quick acceleration. The Kharakid body had not evolved for the desert and certainly not for the rigours of space travel. Yet, it was this idea of fast, straight acceleration that had earned the scout ships their name - Arrow. Aric, however, much preferred the term 'vomit comet'.

"Hyperspace module charging," Fleet Commander stated evenly. "Thirty five percent capacity and rising. The _Mothership_ will be ready for the hyperdrive test in ten minutes."

In that time, the target drones grew closer and closer.

"Arrow flight, weapons free. Acknowledge," Neema commanded.

This dance was almost as old as the Scaffold itself. But, for the first time, Aric flicked the switch to pull the safeties from the Arrow's twin kinetic drivers and then sent a quick blip to acknowledge the order.

This time they got to destroy the drones. On Aric's HUD, indicators and pointers were instructing him where to best line up his fighter for a kill shot.

"Arrow flight, fire at will."

Aric squeezed the trigger. He barely felt his fighter tremble as the pair of kinetic drivers opened fire. Hundreds of rounds a second from each Arrow, every round accelerated to blinding speeds simply not possible in an atmosphere, began to fill the space between the fighters and the drones. Where a round impacted, one of the nine drones broke apart into a cloud of orange debris. The Arrows streaked through, manoeuvring thrusters kicking in to rotate the fighters to face towards the drones even as their acceleration carried them away.

Aric had flown aerofighters before joining the _Mothership_ crew. Even after so many years, the particulars of fighting in zero-gravity still risked making his head spin.

The drugs helped.

He squeezed the trigger and his next burst obliterated the final drone. Two kills.

"Flight analysis shows a twenty-two percent increase in combat performance," Admiral Bei reported. "Mission complete, Major. Return to base."

"You heard the Admiral," Neema reported, voice crackling over the squadron line. "Those're some drones that won't trouble us again. With one confirmed kill, Tehran will be buying the first round back at the well."

"Me?" Tehran asked. "Nine drones, seven fighters! Come on!"

The Arrows hit the deck in pairs. No one made to get out of their fighter, not yet. When the _Mothership_ completed the historic first hyperspace jump in Kharakian history, they would be flying the historic first ever combat space patrol. That could be in hours or it could be in minutes. No one knew for sure.

Except maybe one.

"Hyperspace module fully charged," Fleet Command reported as the final Arrow touched down. "I am ready to initiate quantum wave generation on your mark. Good luck everyone."

After a moment, Admiral Bei replied, "All sections reported in. Trigger the hyperspace drive test at your discretion."

Aric brought up the feed from the cameras on the scaffold, the same footage that was about to be broadcast to everyone on Kharak. The same footage that Chiima would see.

When the hyperdrive had been reverse engineered from the wreck of the _Khar-Toba_, designers had wondered what it would look like. Would it be a great vortex? Would there be an observable effect at all - perhaps the_ Mothership_ would just blink out of its current location and into hyperspace? There had not been enough resources to construct a test drive. If something went wrong, if Karan could not hold everything together, sixty years of work would be for naught.

Aric was holding his breath. He wondered if Chiima was too.

A small line, just longer than the width of the _Mothership_ itself, slipped through space. The line became a tall rectangle, matching the height of the _Mothership_ in a second. The quantum wave - it looked to Aric like a big blue square in space - moved over the _Mothership_, closing behind it like a sliding door. At the moment the wave closed upon itself, the feed from the Scaffold died.

It took Aric a moment to realise that he was still breathing. Ferrin shouted a jubilant curse over the squadron channel.

The first jump had been successful.


	3. Chapter II - Karan

**Chapter II - Karan**

Deep within the _Mothership_, in the deepest, darkest and most heavily protected compartment of the monolithic vessel, Karan S'jet processes. Her sensors and scanning arrays reach out through the universe and while she is a scientist enough to not believe that the universe sings to her, she isn't quite able to parse the information as anything but music. With the _Mothership_ in transit to the outer Kharak system, all Karan must do is monitor the _Mothership's_ status and ensure that all systems act correctly and in concert.

She is only somewhat aware of her physical body ensconced within a fluid-filled tank, linked to the _Mothership's_ systems through dozens of wires and cables that had been grafted into her brain through the back of her head, neck and spine. She is little more than a biological componentof the _Mothership_ now, and that suits her just fine. Science had always been the way of Kiith S'jet.

After all, there was no one else who could have been asked to make this sacrifice. No one else who Karan could have let lay open their neural trunks on the basis of an experimental, untested and wholly invasive procedure that might very well be a permanent assignment. The fact was, Karan doubted she would ever leave the core of the _Mothership_. At the time, developing the neural link system as she had been, she hadn't pondered what would happen when they arrived at Hiigara. No one truly had. So, for now, in a very real sense, she was the _Mothership_, and the _Mothership_ was her.

With a thought, Karan sends a request to all sections, all areas and all decks to verify their post-jump status. In moments, they have all come back green. She checks over the resourcing, engineering, research and military divisions - all fine. All hyperspace systems are operating at full power and within safe parameters and, with another thought, Karan takes a moment to report it to Admiral Bei. When her voice comes over the intercom system, she is dimly aware of her lips moving - vestigial responses from a mind that had been press-ganged, albeit willingly, into being a fleet-wide command and control system.

She feels the _Mothership_ slip back into realspace and she listens to the stars. Karan lets her sensor arrays reach out in every direction, listening for any sign of the _Khar-Selim_.

Even so, she can't keep the excitement out of her voice, dulled as it is by her link to the great machine. Excitement could be disastrous when one wrong neuron firing could spell ship-wide disaster.

"We made it! Hyperspace jump complete. All systems nominal and the quantum wave effect has dissipated."

Admiral Bei was already seeing the information that her sensors were bringing back. He reached the same conclusion and is informing the crew of the vessel. "We've misjumped. The support ship is not here. Fleet Command will signal the _Khar-Selim_ while we confirm our current position."

Karan understands Bei Soban's concerns, but her calculations had been correct. They were on target. They had not misjumped. The _Khar-Selim_ should have been close by, within several hundred kilometers. Karan opens her eyes and examines the walls of her sarcophagus. Data scrolls past, a visual representation of the space around the _Mothership_. No energy, no heat, nothing consistent with anything artificial. The _Khar-Selim_ should have lit up like a flame in the night.

Karan speaks, "This is the _Mothership_ calling support vessel _Khar-Selim_. Come in, please. We have misjumped and are requesting your beacon. This is the _Mothership_ calling support vessel _Khar-Selim_, please respond."

There. A small blip on her sensor. Karan focuses on it, directs the more powerful active scanning arrays to investigate. It's not a real response, and not the one she wanted, but it is enough.

She forwards that information directly to the Admirals.

"Priority alert," Bei reports. "We have picked up the _Khar-Selim's_ automated beacon. Fleet Command, send a probe to make contact and reestablish communications."

While she was in nominal control of the entire _Mothership_, military decisions still fell to the ranking officers - the council of Admirals - aboard the vessel. She obliges and orders the fabrication of a new probe. In minutes, it has been dispatched towards the sensor blip.

It takes almost ten minutes for the probe to begin returning information. After all, many of the _Mothership_ technologies had been just as press-ganged into service as Karan's own mind had been. The technologies worked, sure, but they weren't necessarily the best possible. There simply hadn't been resources to make something better.

Karan opens her eyes and studies the information coming in from the probe. Asteroids, debris - a possibility that the _Khar-Selim_ had been struck by a rogue meteorite?

She orders the probe to rotate. It's slow. Precise, but slow. The _Khar-Selim_ comes into view from the edge of the camera.

If Karan still had control of her own breathing, if it wasn't regulated by some subsystem that linked her to the ship, she might have felt it hitch in her throat.

The _Khar-Selim_ had been snapped in two and much of the rear half of the vessel was simply missing. Debris had spalled out from the rest of the broken hull, glittering where light from the distant Kharak star caught it at just the right angle. Visible carbon scoring ran over the hull like black jagged scars.

Those draw her attention.

She directs the probe to take images and immediately forwards them to Admiral Bei.

He'd come to the same conclusion she had, the only conclusion that one could logically reach - the _Khar-Selim_ hadn't been the victim of some interstellar accident. It had been attacked.

More sensor pings. Small, fast, radiating heat. Ten contacts. Karan listens to them - metal, moving on a direct course towards the _Mothership_, presumably under power. That could only mean one thing.

"They're attacking?" Karan reports, confused. And then, in her usual calm cadence, "The _Mothership_ is under attack."

Admiral Bei is already taking command. The _Mothership's_ defensive fighters are already launching. "Engage incoming attackers. The _Mothership_ must be defended."

On her displays, the battle is represented as green and red blips. By focusing on any of them, she can bring up additional information. She doesn't. She's not a tactician. She's busy coordinating damage control and repair teams, activating the defensive batteries, and plotting information that the soldiers might be able to use.

This deep in the _Mothership_, floating silently, she doesn't even feel the ship rock when the first burst of weapons fire impacts the hull. The damage report is brought up instantly - minimal, no casualties. The enemy craft are using mass drivers and missiles. Dangerous to smaller craft or something unarmored like the _Khar-Selim_ had been, but the _Mothership_ was well protected. The possibility of hostile actions had been accounted for during construction.

Just not so close to home.

The fact that her heartbeat is regulated by the _Mothership_ keeps her suitably detached as a green icon - Arrow Four - vanishes. She marks the area for a search and rescue team to investigate once the local area is secure.

She redirects fire from her guns, catching one of the attacking craft - what Fleet Intelligence has termed a 'missile corvette' - and punches a number of holes through it. It vanishes from her display.

Even though he is on the bridge of the _Mothership_, Bei Soban's voice is as if he is speaking into her ear. "Command, we need to recover what we can from the _Khar-Selim_. Recommend dispatching a salvage team immediately. We'll roll half of our fighters in as cover."

She acknowledges. It's only a minor problem that the _Mothership_ doesn't have any craft that were made to run salvage missions in hostile territory (some part of Karan is saddened that her home system can be summed up as 'hostile'). She brings up the plans for the Porter-class vessels and makes a couple of minor adjustments. Tough and maneuverable, those ships had been instrumental in constructing the _Mothership_.

They'd be the first of the new salvage corvettes.

There are already more red blips on her displays as the salvage team exits the _Mothership's_ hangar and plots a course for the _Khar-Selim_. The defenders need more ships, more pilots. The former is easily enough fabricated through stores of raw materials with new designs from the minds of Fleet Intelligence. The pilots, however, are harder to find. Those with military experience are already boarding their craft and Karan begins scouring the crew manifest, checking each and every crew member for relevant skills or knowledge that could be repurposed into a cockpit.

She finds some. Another ten fighters launch out of the strike craft bay, devoid of ornamentation or paintwork. Prototypes designed to take advantage of the detailed information Karan had gathered during the first battle - a reinforced hull to absorb hits, powerful engines to evade missiles.

Admiral Bei is speaking, "We have determined that these enemy craft are inferior to ours. To protect against penetration of the Kharak system, destroy the attacking force _completely_."

Karan turns her attention away from the next wave of fighting to examine the feed from the probe. She can see the salvage team in spacesuits making quick time over the hull of the _Khar-Selim_. She brings up the _Khar-Selim's_ blueprints and plots the location of the bridge, giving them a reference point.

There are red blips heading in that direction, too. Four minutes. She advises the Admiral. It'll take five for fighters to break away from the dogfight around the _Mothership_ and reach the salvage corvette.

It'll have to be enough.

More and more contacts. Karan is reminded of some of the buzzing insects on Kharak that would fly into a swarm when disturbed. Someone didn't want them investigating the wreck. She's already plotting the paths of the incoming fighters and corvettes, winnowing them down to the trajectories that are the most common or otherwise repeating. The ships are too small to have long-lasting fuel reserves. They have to have a base.

Bei agrees. A probe is dispatched along the most common flight path. It doesn't return much data before being annihilated but it does provide one clear image of a blocky, angular starship.

"It's an enemy carrier," Bei states. "The attackers are using it to reinforce their squadrons of fighters and corvettes. Do not engage."

The salvage corvette is returning, engines burning hard. One escort fighter has been destroyed and the other two have turned, maintaining their course towards the _Mothership _through inertia while firing at their pursuers. The attackers break off, burning back towards their carrier vessel.

When the corvette docks, Karan decrypts the mission data recorder from the _Khar-Selim_ in moments. She analyses it, finds the end of the recording, trims out anything not relevant to the incident. She sends the relevant sections to the various Admirals. When they play it, so does she.

_"What do you mean you detect a hyperspace entry? The Mothership isn't due for..."_

_"Sir, I have multiple contacts on closing vectors. Unknown profiles... No recognition codes... Uhh, they're not ours."_

_"Well, if they're not ours, who the hell are they?"_

_"Sir, they're coming in fast... Check- Incoming fire! We are under attack! They're getting through! Breaches across all decks! Hull integrity failing!"_

_"Khar-Selim to Mothership! If you are receiving, abort hyperdrive test! Repeat: abort hyperdrive tes-"_

Karan checked the timestamps on the recording against the _Mothership's_ own time. The attack had taken place only minutes before their arrival.

Karan didn't like the implications of that data. She had always rejected the idea of coincidences in a deterministic system. It would have been merely unlucky if the attackers had stumbled upon the _Khar-Selim_ at any other time. Stumbling upon the _Khar-Selim_ within moments of the _Mothership's_ hyperdrive test was not unlucky - there was some level of planning there. After all, if it were possible for their technology to monitor for hyperspace waveforms then other parties might have been able to do the same.

Perhaps from a longer distance.

Admiral Bei gives the order for all craft to return to the _Mothership_. Detailed casualty numbers and status reports are directed to Karan to distribute. They are, thankfully, minimal.

"Enemy units eliminated," Bei states, "Objectives complete. Standby for immediate return to Kharak."

At her command, the _Mothership_ enters hyperspace and Karan turns her attention inward. The pilots, new and old, are receiving a tactical briefing on the capabilities of the attacking vessels given the possibility of an attack on Kharak. A message is being relayed to Kharak to activate the planetary defense network and to accelerate the final refit of the _Mothership_. Across the ship people are in shock, mourning, hoping that it was all some sort of misunderstanding.

Karan does not think so. Karan does not feel. Carefully regulated and engineered to be free of emotion, she can only see the data and the patterns within it.

The attack was premeditated.

Still, when the Mothership exits hyperspace in orbit of Kharak, it takes the _Mothership's_ life-support systems several moments to analyse Karan's mental state, to slow down her heart rate, her respiration and keep her calm. For the first time, the system _fails_ and Karan is no longer Fleet Command, the omniscient heart and mind of the _Mothership_...

She is merely Karan S'jet, nothing more than a young, idealistic scientist trying to come to terms with the impossible. Sensor data is left untouched, situation reports and information requests piling up... An urgent personal communique from Admiral Bei, the icon blinking, also went unanswered.

"No one's left. Everything's gone," Karan says, her voice barely above a murmur, aware that she is trapped within a watery sarcophagus of wires and tubes as the world around her collapses into entropy.

"Kharak is burning."


End file.
